Well, blow me (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Well, blow me

2:54pm Tuesday 6th January 2009

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If I hadn’t been stopped already, it would have stopped me in my tracks.

As I left a city centre pub after wishing a colleague farewell, I was dressed to the hilt in cycling gear - helmet, hi-viz anti-cold jacket, long cycling pants, cycling boots, flashing rear light… you get the picture - when someone else stepped out into the evening air from the pub for a smoke.

As I unlocked my bike from the wall railings, he looked at me with a slightly puzzled air and asked the question: "Are you cycling?"

"What do you think?" was the first response that came to mind, but I let him off with a chuckled: "Yes. Cold isn’t it?"

Then he compounded his numb train of thinking with the follow-up small-talk line: "You must have a death wish to be cycling on the roads."

Which I thought a tad rich, coming from someone drawing heavily on a lighted cancer stick and puffing acrid smoke into the air, with the demeanour of someone who can’t go very long without a drag, even on the coldest of nights.

Chaqu ’un a son gout, as the French might say.